Student Researcher's Toolkit

weblinksWebsite links:

For help with...

• Designing a research project

http://www.soc.surrey.ac.uk/sru/ (Social Research Updates - various articles)

http://www.socialresearchmethods.net/ (The Web Center for Social Research Methods)

• Quantitative vs. qualitative research strategies

http://www.nova.edu/ssss/QR/QR3-4/jones.html (interesting article by Ian Jones, comparing the two approaches)

Managing your supervisor

http://www.grad.ac.uk/cms/ShowPage/Home_page/Supervisors/p!edcbbbj (UK Grad School. This page is designed for supervisors, but is useful in clarifying what the role of your supervisor is, and your respective responsibilities.)

• Epistemological and ontological questions

http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qa3907/is_200010/ai_n8915041 (a useful article summarising what these concepts mean and how they can be applied to the design of social research into 'experiential education').

• Conducting a literature review

http://wok.mimas.ac.uk/ (Web of Knowledge - access to various databases)

• Systematic reviews

http://www.bmj.com/cgi/content/full/315/7109/672 (an excellent descriptive summary of what a systematic review [or meta-analysis] is, with examples of how the method is used in medical research. This article was written by Trisha Greenhaigh for the British Medical Journal.)

http://ssrc.tums.ac.ir/SystematicReview/ (a really user-friendly website written by a specialist Systematic Review study group at Tehran University of Medical Sciences. It includes a summary of the method, practical guidelines and a critical discussion.)

• Sampling techniques

http://www.socialresearchmethods.net/kb/sampling.htm (part of Bill Trochim's Research Methods Knowledge Base, in the Web Center for Social Research Methods)

• Negotiating access to 'difficult to reach' populations

http://sru.soc.surrey.ac.uk/ (scroll down to article 33, Accessing Hidden and Hard-to-Reach Populations: Snowball Research Strategies <http://sru.soc.surrey.ac.uk/SRU33.html> and click on this link, which brings up an article by Rowland Atkinson and John Flint)

http://www.socresonline.org.uk/5/1/goode.html (article by Sarah Goode on how to access 'hard to reach' populations)

• Designing a survey or questionnaire

http://qb.soc.surrey.ac.uk/ (Question Bank - University of Surrey)

http://www.tardis.ed.ac.uk/~kate/qmcweb/qcont.htm (by Alison Galloway - part of the Tardis Project at the University of Edinburgh)

http://www.s3ri.soton.ac.uk/cass/ (Centre for Applied Social Surveys - University of Southampton)

• Conducting in-depth interviews

http://www.socresonline.org.uk/3/3/2.html (article by Peter Collins about the 'negotiation of selves' in unstructured interviewing)

http://www.socresonline.org.uk/2/1/4.html (article by Nirmal Puwar about the experience of interviewing women MPs, in relation to feminist theories of interviewing)

http://www.socresonline.org.uk/5/2/harden.html (article by Jeni Harden et al about the practical and ethical implications of interviewing children)

• Finding official statistics / secondary data

http://www.data-archive.ac.uk/ (UK Data Archive)

http://www.statistics.gov.uk/ (National Statistics Online [UK])

• Content analysis of mass media texts

http://www.content-analysis.de/index.html (excellent site written by Matthias Romppel)

http://www.qualitative-research.net/fqs-texte/2-00/2-00mayring-e.htm (useful article by Phillip Mayring)

• Running a focus group

http://sru.soc.surrey.ac.uk/SRU19.html (useful article by Anita Gibbs)

• Doing Internet-based research

http://serials.infomotions.com/aejvc/ (Electronic Journal on Virtual Culture)

http://www.behavior.net/JOB/index.html (Journal of Online Behavior)

• Language in qualitative research

http://www-staff.lboro.ac.uk/~ssca1/sitemenu.htm (excellent guide to Conversation Analysis - by Charles Antaki)

http://extra.shu.ac.uk/daol/ (Discourse Analysis Online journal)

• Feminist methodology

http://www.esds.ac.uk/qualidata/support/interviews/feminist.asp (helpful overview by ESDS - Economic and Social Data Services)

http://www.socresonline.org.uk/2/1/4.html (insightful article about interviewing women MPs, by Nirmal Puwar)

• Quantitative data analysis

http://techniques.geog.ox.ac.uk/mod_2/glossary/basicdef.html (helpful Statistics Glossary - by Valerie Easton and John McColl)

• SPSS

http://www.spss.com/ (official website for SPSS version 16)

http://data.fas.harvard.edu/projects/SPSS_Tutorial/spsstut.shtml (guide/tutorial for using SPSS, written by Harvard University academics)

• Qualitative data analysis

http://www.analytictech.com/mb870/introtoGT.htm (Introduction to grounded theory - by Steve Borgatti)

http://caqdas.soc.surrey.ac.uk/ (CAQDAS Networking Project - University of Surrey)

• NVivo

http://www.qsrinternational.com/products_nvivo.aspx (official website for NVivo version 7)

http://www.lynrichards.org/HQD_Tutorials.htm (guide/tutorial for using NVivo 7, by Lynn Richards)

• Ethical guidelines

http://www.britsoc.co.uk/equality/Statement+Ethical+Practice.htm (BSA code of ethics. Also available from this page of the main BSA website: http://www.britsoc.co.uk/equality/ )

http://www.lancs.ac.uk/fss/resouces/ethics (Lancaster University Ethics Committee - packed with helpful information)

http://venus.soci.niu.edu/~jthomas/ethics/ethics.html (Ethical issues in Internet-based research - by Jim Thomas)

• Avoiding sexist, racist and disablist language (BSA guidelines)

Available from this page of the BSA website: http://www.britsoc.co.uk/equality/

• Time management

http://www.grad.ac.uk/cms/ShowPage/Home_page/Resources/Just_for_Postgrads/Managing_your_research/p!elkimeL (UK Grad School)

• Writing up your research report

http://www.trinity.edu/~mkearl/research.html (Writing a research paper - by Michael Kearl)

• Referencing

http://www.sussex.ac.uk/library/infosuss/referencing/index.shtml (online tutorial from the University of Sussex. Contains details of the Harvard, numeric and Vancouver systems of referencing.)

http://www.uwe.ac.uk/library/resources/general/info_study_skills/harvelec.htm (more specific advice on using the Harvard system, including guidelines on how to reference websites and other electronic resources.)

http://www.humanities.manchester.ac.uk/studyskills/assignments/reference/ (another useful overview, with examples, from the University of Manchester.)